Forest Canopy Cover Percentage Above 2m for Canada, 1985–2011

Forest Percentage Above 2m 2015 is a dataset from Natural Resources Canada representing canopy cover. It provides percentage estimates of first returns above 2 meters for Canada's forested ecosystems, covering approximately 650 million hectares from 1985 to 2011. The data was generated by combining lidar plot information with Landsat pixel-based composites using a nearest neighbour imputation approach.

Use Cases

• Modeling forest biomass and carbon stocks based on canopy cover and height metrics.
• Monitoring long-term changes in forest structure based on the 1985–2011 time-series.
• Analyzing spatial patterns of canopy cover across Canada's forested ecosystems.
• Supporting strategic-level forest monitoring and reporting needs based on the dataset's stated purpose.

Strengths

• Data is based on peer-reviewed science and methods described in Matasci et al. (2018).
• Covers a vast geographic area of approximately 650 million hectares.
• Provides a consistent 30-meter spatial resolution for all products.
• Covers a multi-decadal time period from 1985 to 2011.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The dataset is intended for strategic-level monitoring and not for operational-level forest management.

Provenance

Source

Natural Resources Canada, developed within the National Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring System (NTEMS).

Collection Method

Generated by combining lidar plot data with Landsat composites using a nearest neighbour imputation approach with a Random Forests-based distance metric.

Time Range

1985–2011

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-16 16:04:51.599024; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Canada's forested ecosystems (~650 Mha)